I ate lunch at a restaurant with a friend yesterday. Lunch was great because of the company. The salad that came with it was covered in oil. I used to dislike vegetables. I covered them in dressing. I was partial to Italian, but ranch or French would do. I didn’t know any better. The dressings came pre-made in bottles, full of flavor. By contrast, the vegetables tasted bland.

I’m talking about when I was ten years old, maybe even up to twenty. Well after twenty I still love chips, pretzels, and ice cream. Fruits and vegetables tasted bland. Still, at some point I grew up, as did my taste.

I guess I’ve lost touch with that me. Lettuce tastes delicious. It’s sweet and juicy. Carrots taste like candy. Tomatoes have more complexity and intensity of flavor than even the chips withe the spiciest flavor packs.

How did we reach where the default at nearly every restaurant in the country is to offer few vegetable and what vegetables they offer are covered in oil, usually fried, and often battered?

I know how far I am from the mainstream and that many people see me out of touch, that they see vegetables and the people who like them as elite and privileged. I also know they’re what our great-grandparents ate. I know what they used to call “heirloom, organic tomatoes.” They used to call them “tomatoes.” I also know my top food expense is dried beans, which are literally dirt cheap. I’ve seen potting soil more expensive than dried beans.

I spend less on food than the average American, as I’ve shown in my post on my annual food spending. I submit that we can do better, that if we restore our diets to healthy, local produce, we will only wish we had earlier.

I forgot to mention above how nearly every time I mention I don’t use refined oils, people lecture me on how healthy they think extra virgin olive oil is. Sure, compared to trans fat, but not compared to plain nuts. It reminds me of one of the most frustrating and exacerbating parts of trying to live more sustainably: how much people lecture at me, sometimes things so obvious they might as well lecture me that water is wet, other times so cockamamie, I can’t believe they fall for it.

Anyway, I recommend eating more vegetables and less refined oils, even zero, for a month to let your taste buds recover and rediscover their incredible flavor.

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